Brandy has been interested in bugs and butterflies since she was
7 years old. Now, she “raises” butterflies.

On a recent Sunday, a male hatched in her home’s small butterfly
nursery. Brandy explained that in emerging from its chrysalis —best
described as a birthing pod — most of its wing was torn off.

“Since he couldn’t fly, I figured I would just keep him in my
butterfly garden on the flowers and eventually let nature take its
course,” she says.

“It was sad, though, because this little boy should have been
headed down to Mexico for the winter.”

Each year beginning in late August, thousands of monarch
butterflies migrate from North America to central Mexico. Brandy
fretted over how to help her hatchling make the trip — and she soon
had a scheme.

“That very night, a stranger and butterfly lover had posted on
the online Monarch Watch page about doing wing repair for one of
her butterflies. I knew I had to try. The only thing was … where
would I get a wing?

“I reached Gary Koeller, who heads the education department of
the Quad-City Botanical Center, where there is a butterfly
enclosure. There was a monarch that was no longer alive. He gave it
to me to provide a donor wing for my butterfly. I suppose you’d
call it a cadaver butterfly.”

Koeller said Monday: “I have never heard of butterfly wing
transplant like this in my life. It’s an amazing tribute to
Brandy’s persistence and skill to pull off such a delicate
transplant.”

Undoubtedly, it takes a deft touch to surgically attach one
butterfly’s wing to another. Butterflies are flittery creatures
that settle down best when the sun goes down or in night-like
conditions.

But Brandy had a surgical plan in place.

“I turned off the kitchen lights to trick him into thinking it
was night. It calmed him down while he was gently held in place
with the hook of a coat hangar. I tried two coats of Permatex from
an auto supply store. My butterfly flapped, didn’t stay still. I
tried it twice. This glue wasn’t going to work, so I used
Loctite.”

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Confidently, Brandy swiftly moved like a skilled surgeon. She
used thin-bladed scissors and tweezers and a spotlight in the
darkened kitchen.

“The transplant was from a girl monarch butterfly to my boy
monarch. I’m hopeful that he didn’t mind. For the second try, I
held him in place with toothpicks. He did not appreciate being
held down. But the glue was holding. It dried for six
minutes.”

To help dry the area of the glue-surgery, Brandy sprinkled a
dusting of cornstarch on the butterfly.

But would it work when the butterfly went airborne?

Brandy gently took the butterfly — with a new donor wing —
outside. She held him for a moment in her hand.

“He took off as if nothing was wrong and headed south,” Brandy
says. “The only thing I can say is that he will be late for a
Mexican vacation — if he makes it.”